The Fairfax District is a small Midtown neighborhood with a long history as one of Los Angeles' primary centers of Jewish culture. The boundaries, like many Los Angeles neighborhoods, aren't universally agreed upon but I place them as Melrose Ave on the north, N La Brea Ave on the east, W 3rd St to the south and N Fairfax on the west.

It's neighbored by The Melrose District (currently a group is attempting to change its name to Melrose Village) to the north, Hollywood to the northeast, Hancock Park to the east, Park La Brea and Miracle Mile to the south, and Beverly Grove to the west. It used to be commonly referred to as The Bagel District but nowadays there sadly aren't as many bagels around. A more common nickname nowadays, especially in reference to Fairfax Ave, is "Kosher Canyon." Signs designate the Fairfax Avenue corridor "Fairfax Village."

HISTORY OF FAIRFAX

The flat, coastal plains that are now the Midtown area were, before the European Conquest, part of the Tongva homeland. During the early years of Los Angeles, what's now the Midtown area was predominantly pasture and farmlands.

In 1852, the La Casa de Rancho La Brea (later re-named Gilmore Adobe) was built in the area. Farmer Arthur Fremont Gilmore bought the 256 acre Rancho La Brea in 1880 after having moved there from Illinois in 1870. Whilst drilling for water, he struck oil in 1905 but the area remained sparsely populated.

In 1921, Gilmore's grandson, Earl Bell Gilmore, switched the Gilmore Company's focus from dairy farming to gas distribution, founding the A.F. Gilmore Oil Company. Development, in earnest, began the following year when Harvey McCarthy developed the nearby Carthay Center as an upscale neighborhood. As with most of LA, racist housing covenants restricted home ownership to white Angelenos but many Jews, previously centered in the Eastside neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, City Terrace, East Los Angeles and Montebello moved to the area around Fairfax Ave, establishing delis, restaurants, kosher butchers, bakeries and fish markets and giving the area a pronounced Jewish character.

Gilmore Island

Meanwhile, Earl Gilmore developed the Gilmore Island landmark, which included several entertainment venues.

Gilmore Stadium

In May, 1934, Earl Gilmore opened the 18,000-seat Gilmore Stadium. It was home to LA's first professional American Football team, the Los Angeles Bulldogs. It was also used for midget car racing, donkey baseball, boxing, dog shows, rodeos and cricket. It was featured in the Three Stooges film, Three Little Pigskins (1934).

Gilmore Field

Gilmore Field was built in 1938 for the Hollywood baseball team, jointly owned by Bing Crosby, Barbara Stanwyck, and Cecil B. DeMille. The Stadium was ultimately demolished in 1951. The Field was demolished in 1958.

THE ORIGINAL FARMERS MARKET

Inside the farmer's market

Ground pork shaped vaguely like pigs

The Farmers Market opened in July 1934. It began with just eighteen farmers. Unlike the stadium, it's still there, with more than 100 restaurants, grocers and shops. On the day of our visit, we decided without debate to eat at the always delicious Loteria Grill.

Pan Pacific Auditorium

The Wurdeman and Becket-designed Streamline Moderne Pan Pacific Auditorium opened in May 1935. It was home to the Pacific Coast Hockey League team, the Los Angeles Monarchs. For many years it was the premiere indoor sports venue. It closed in 1972. In 1975, the Pan-Pacific appeared in Funny Lady (1978) as New York's NBC Studios. In 1978, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It also appeared in Xandadu (1980), the Devo video "Beautiful World" (1981) and Miracle Mile (1988). Long home to squatters, it suffered from neglect and accidental fires started by transients for years until it finally burned down in 1989.

By 1935, there were four synagogues in the neighborhood. After World War II, many Holocaust survivors joined the older Jewish population and by 1945, there were twelve synagogues. In addition, religious schools and a Jewish Community Center opened. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Fairfax District was the center of Jewish life in Los Angeles but the character changed as established Jewish-Americans increasingly secured white-collar jobs and moved to other neighborhoods. The newly arriving Jews, often from Israel, Ukraine and Russia, more often continued to operate small shops that still characterize the neighborhood.

CANTER'S

Canter's deli originally opened as Canter Brother's Delicatessen in Boyle Heights in 1931, when it still had a large Jewish population. In 1941 it moved, with much of the city's Jewish population, to Fairfax. The new Canter's was known as Canter's Fairfax and was located at 439 Fairfax. In 1953 it moved to its current, larger location, which had been the Esquire Theatre from 1937 until '53.

THE SILENT MOVIE THEATRE

The Silent Movie Theatre was opened in 1942 by John Hampton. In 1997 it was in the news when then-owner, Laurence Austin, was murdered in the theater during a screening of F.W. Murnau's film, Sunrise, by a gunman (Christian Rodriguez) hired by his lover (and the theater's projectionist), James Van Sickle. It closed in the following year and was reopened in 1999 by a new owner, Charlie Lustman. By then it was the last purely silent movie theater in the universe. In 2006, Sammy and Dan Harkham, and Hadrian Belove purchased the theater and started showing talkies the following year after renaming it Cinefamily. On the occasions that they did show silent films, they employed the services of master accompanist Bob Mitchell, until he passed away in 2009, aged 96. It is also famous for having the most uncomfortable seating in Southern California.

Meanwhile, back at Gilmore Island, the 850-seat, William L. Pereira-designed Pan Pacific Theatreopened in 1942. It closed in 1984, shortly after it was filmed and featured in Tuff Turf (1985) and was destroyed by an arsonist supposedly under the employ of a shady developer. Nearby, the 650-car capacity, Balch & Bryan-designed Gilmore Drive-In opened in 1948, another Streamline Moderne structure on the former site of an orchard and nursery. It ceased operation in 1977. It appeared in the 1980 film Loose Shoes (filmed in 1977) and the 1977 horror film Ruby.

CBS TELEVISION CITY

Nearby, on the site of the former Gilmore Stadium, stands CBS Television City. CBS bought CBS Studio Center in Studio City in 1963 but Television City is where The Young and the Restless, the Late Late Show and The Price is Right are filmed. Other shows filmed there in the past include All in the Family, House Party, The Carol Burnett Show, The Dinah Shore Show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, The Merv Griffin Show, The Mike Douglas Show, The Smothers Brothers, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Twilight Zone.

THE GROVE

In 2001, construction of The Grovebegan on the Farmers Market parking lot and former site of the drive-in. In 1999, old, historic buildings were torn down to make way for an outdoor mall designed to look like a series of old, historic buildings. However, this simulacrum improves on reality with a trolley, a music-fountain show, fake snow at Christmas, and a loud, acrid Abercrombie & Fitch Town Hall.

We visited the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. It's a pretty somber and depressing affair, as you'd expect, but eye-opening in several regards. The reproduction of newspapers shows how the NAZIs gradually eroded people's rights, rather than taking them away over night. The old newspapers also show how common racism was in the US as well. For example, one article is about the illegality of marriage between whites and Asians, another casually reports "A Mob of 199 White Men Lynch a Negro."

Pan Pacific Park

Ed Smith's Sixty Trees

The green-roofed museum is located in the Pan Pacific Park, a tranquil area with features including Ed Smith's Sixty Trees (Planted by Minnie), a statue ofHaym Solomon, a Jewish patriot from the American Revolution, a recreation center built to resemble the old Pan Pacific Auditorium, and Renée's Place, a posh playground with first-class swings.

I've never been to El Coyote Cafe (because everyone tells me the food's bad) but it's a neighborhood institution, having opened in 1931. Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski ate their last meal at El Coyote, shortly before they were murdered by the Manson Family. It lost some of its kitsch appeal when it became known that the current owner, Margie Christoffersen, gave financial support to Proposition 8.

The neighborhood is also home to Sante La Brea, which was featured in one of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares most entertaining episodes. Sadly, the restaurant recently announced that it's closing. They also used to cater all of Amoeba's functions. For those that, for whatever reason, get excited about celebrity sightings, I once saw Lemonadoligist, 30 Seconds to Mars-singer and TV's Jordan Catalano, Jared Leto sharing lunch there with a chihuahua.

We opted to grab a few end-of-blogventure drinks at The Parlor. It's one of those enormous joints with a gazillion TV's all tuned to various sports that attracts a rather Jersey Shore-esque crowd, which is kind of exciting because Angelenos don't have that many opportunities to observe bros in the wild.

FAIRFAX MUSIC

I don't readily know of any bands or musicians born in the Fairfax District although there are a handful of independent record stores: Headline Records (which specializes in punk, thrash, straight edge, garage, rockabilly and psychobilly) and Street Sounds, which specializes in dance music and rather improbably claims to be "L.A.'s most prominent record store." Turntable Lab has been selling vinyl, CDs, DJ equipment and more since 1999.

Rocket Video is Fairfax's preeminent video store. It was established north of its current location, in the Melrose District, but recently moved south.

There's also Family Bookstore, which also has a nice selection of art prints, DVDs and music.

There used to be several movie theaters in the Fairfax District but these days there's only one, the New Beverly Cinema, one of LA's several revival houses that primarily screenclassic, independent, grindhouse, cultandforeignfilms. The theater was designed by architects John P. Edwards and Warren Frazier Overpeck and originally opened as a vaudeville theater. Around 1945 became a nightclub called Slapsie Maxies. It became the Capri Theater in the 1950s. In the 1960s it became The Riviera. In the 1960s it became The Europa and screened European art house films. In its next incarnation, as the Eros, it showed erotic European films and later, gayporn. In 1968 it became The Beverly and showed porn with live strippers on stage. It became the New Beverly in 1978. In 2007, its operator Sherman Torgan died of a heart attack whilst riding his bike in Santa Monica. His son Michael struggled to keep it going until it was purchased by Quentin Tarantino in 2009.